Already running in fourth place, after both Ferraris had pitted, Verstappen held on to the position, as the cars closed up nose to tail.
By lap 23, he was past George Russell for third place. Two laps later, at half distance, he went past Alonso and slotted behind his team-mate.
By that time, Perez had a gap of almost 6sec and the scent of victory saw Verstappen push hard. But an on-form Perez wasn’t deferring and was almost matching the world champion lap for lap.
A strange noise then spooked Verstappen, coming so soon after his issues in qualifying, and the Red Bulls dropped their pace, Perez crossing the line 5sec ahead of Verstappen and 26sec clear of Alonso.
Verstappen passes Alonso to take second place
Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images
Despite looking in control for most of the race, Perez said that it was tougher than expected thanks to the safety car which closed up the pack.
“We will keep pushing,” he said. “We will keep pushing hard. The most important thing was we were the fastest car out there.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner suggested that the team expected its advantage to diminish later in the season as rivals brought upgrades — with red Bull getting less aerodynamic time as a result of winning last year’s championship and being penalised for breaching F1’s cost cap.”
“It will converge,” he told Sky Sports. “The team have built an incredible car. What we saw today was two drivers pushing each other. I think that was Checo’s best-ever race and those guys were going absolutely flat out until we thought we had an issue with Max.”
Alonso had initially taken the lead of the race but was quickly passed by Perez. However, just as Ocon had done in Bahrain, the Aston Martin driver had positioned his car too far to one side of his grid position at the start, which can defeat the sensors used to prevent jump starts.
Alonso leads at the start
Dan Istitene/F1 via Getty Images
A five-second penalty, to be served at his first pitstop, was imposed. However, just two weeks after the high-profile error from the Alpine pitcrew which saw them start working on Ocon’s car before the 5sec were up, Aston Martin were suspected of making a similar mistake.
The rear jack was touching Alonso’s car as the five seconds counted down before the team could carry out the pitstop. It appeared to initially go unnoticed, as Alonso left the pits and resumed in a comfortable third place thanks to the safety car, which effectively neutralised his penalty.
But it became clear in the closing laps that an investigation was ongoing as Mercedes urged Russell to remain within 5sec of Alonso and Aston Martin encouraged its driver to increase the gap.
